


the only hope for me is you, or, love and friendship in the wild west

by sailorwednesday



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, Artist Steve Rogers, Catholic Steve Rogers, Cowboy AU, Detectives, Drinking, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Labor Unions, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Period Typical Attitudes, Protective Bucky Barnes, bucky is a leftist, outlaws or something
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailorwednesday/pseuds/sailorwednesday
Summary: It was the darkness, the drink maybe, but he almost stumbled into the man coming in as he pushed out of the double doors. He recoiled, his blood suddenly turning cold and his heart  racing. The man was dressed like the others inside, a work shirt, red bandanna, and trousers with suspenders, no jacket, and oddly enough, a single glove. His hair was long and he wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes-- but those eyes. Steve knew them. It couldn’t be.series of one-shots/brief segments set in the same universe: 1870s American West
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	1. welcome to Purgatory, 1876

The train rolled into Purgatory, Colorado, screeching and belching coal fumes. Steven Rogers straightened his shoulders and adjusted his bowler before he stepped out into the dust. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t this. The land was desolate, but beautiful, stretching as far as he could see in a riot of colors, earthen browns and reds greys and in the distance the deep greens of a forest. It was quiet, quieter than Brooklyn had ever been. And the air, the _air_. Even with the industrial tang of coal lingering, it was sweet and crisp and felt good to breathe. Suddenly he wondered if those quacks peddling wellness cures in Santa Fe and Albuquerque weren’t so wrong after all.

He had the name of the boardinghouse where he would be staying written on a slip of paper, having been worried he might not be able to find it. That didn’t seem like such a concern now, the only place that looked big enough to house guests sat in a sun-beaten hulk where the street ran out. He looked for a porter, and there wasn’t one. He’d be lugging his things there himself, then. It wouldn’t have been so bad except all the photographic equipment was damned unwieldy. He shouldered the case with a sigh and hoped to god that none of the glass plates would break. It wasn’t like he’d be able to just go buy more if they did. It’s why he was partial to his pencils and water colors.

Most of his fellow travelers had gotten off before the train dead ended in this speck of a town, the few stragglers had already disappeared into the clapboarded buildings along the main street while Steve was trying to get his bearings, so when he set out towards the boardinghouse he was alone.

It was a bit dilapidated and weather-worn, but that was alright enough. On the ground floor, a sparse parlor and a dingy dining room where he was told meals were served twice a day; up a rickety stair, the guest rooms. His was one of the larger ones, a corner room, with views in both directions, giving him a vantage point over the entire town. It had all been arranged ahead by telegram.

He thanked the surly boardinghouse keeper for showing him up, not missing the outright suspicion with which she eyed him and his camera equipment. He’d been warned not to expect friendliness. The West was different, everyone said. It didn’t matter for his mission, anyway. He was just supposed to watch and listen, pretend to be a company man making maps and documentary images for posterity. It wasn’t as exciting what some of the other operatives were doing, chasing down criminals and exposing subterfuge with daring feats. That was fine. He had had enough excitement in the war, and it was nice to have a reason to leave New York and its haunted streets. It had been almost ten years now, and there were so many faces he always expected to see when he rounded a corner, only to remember they’d died down South. It was time for a fresh start. He was lucky, he had to remind himself.

He washed the train dust off himself in the small basin set in one corner of his room and slicked a comb through his hair. He figured it was too early to start skulking around, the light was no good for photos and besides he hadn’t found a place to develop the plates yet, and so he might as well go for a drink and a smoke.

…

It didn’t take long to find the saloon. He had heard a lot about them, all kinds of romantic stories about outlaws and dancing girls but it didn’t seem much different from any other bar. It was dark and smelled like beer and smoke. A few men sat at tables in the gloom, and a few looked up when he entered, but no one said anything and he was relieved. He wondered if he would ever stop looking over his shoulder, feeling like he was out of place. A voice in his head reminded him that was part of his job now. To be on edge all the time. At least it made the paranoia the doctors called soldier’s heart good for something, he thought darkly.

He ordered a whiskey from the bar girl, then pulled a small notebook and a charcoal pencil from his jacket pocket and settled in to draw while he waited for it.

“You just get in? I don’t recognize you.” The girl set the drink down, eyeing him appraisingly.

“Yes ma’am. I’m Steve Rogers, pleasure to meet you.” Barmaid or not, he had manners. She was pretty he guessed, and younger than he had first thought, with red hair swept up high on her head. “From Brooklyn.”

“Hmph. You here for the gold or the trains?”

“I work for the company. Is there much gold here?”

“No. But that don’t stop them from trying.” She cracked a wry smile and nodded at his book. “What’ve you got there?”

“Sketches. I’m an illustrator, it’s why I’m here.”

“A real artist? Ha. Bet girls are always asking you to draw them.” He could feel himself blushing. It wasn’t that it wasn’t true, just that he never knew what to say when they asked.

“Look at you! Better toughen up, love. Enjoy your drink.”

He shook his head, bemused, as she made her way to another table. The men looked a little rough around the edges, tanned, and wore the red bandannas of union men. Railway laborers, then.

He drank his whiskey, it was warm and cheap but felt pleasant as it burned down his throat; he sketched for a while, getting the day’s images out of his head and onto the paper. The train carriage, the basin in his lodging, the expanse of land and sky. He ordered a second drink, and a third. He had nowhere to be and it was pleasant watching the other patrons and the bar girl. They called her Nat; he wondered what it was short for. It was dark and he was tired and buzzing by the time he rose to leave, leaving money on the table and doffing his bowler to Nat on his way out the door.

It was the darkness, the drink maybe, but he almost stumbled into the man coming in as he pushed out of the double doors. He recoiled, his blood suddenly turning cold and his heart racing. The man was dressed like the others inside, a work shirt, red bandanna, and trousers with suspenders, no jacket, and oddly enough, a single glove. His hair was long and he wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes-- but those eyes. Steve _knew_ them. It couldn’t be.

“Bucky?”

Surprise, confusion, hurt, _recognition_ flashed across the man’s face. He froze in his tracks, his eyes flashing.

“Who the hell…Steve? No, no. You’re not— “

Steve felt like he had been punched, his hands clenching and unclenching in fists at his sides. He couldn’t process this. He had imagined this moment so many times, only had never thought it would happen, because James Buchanan Barnes, his Bucky, his best friend, his... was dead. Or was supposed to be, killed in Andersonville. He could feel tears welling in his eyes, unbidden. “Buck. I thought… They sent a letter…”

“Jesus _fuck_ , I can explain, alright? Will you let me explain?” His eyes were wide, desperate.

Steve swallowed hard. It really was _him_ and he was alive and real and _here_ , somehow, and of course Steve would let him explain, would let him do anything he wanted and _shit, this job just got so much harder_.


	2. in which running from the past somehow makes a future, 1869

Bucky had come back to the world in fits and starts. He didn’t remember much of the war. The sound of the cannons. The muck and the cold and the feeling of damp wool that never quite dried. He remembered his men, how he had wanted to protect them all. How he hadn’t been able to. He had thought about looking them up a few times, and always decided against it. The past was the past and it was dead. He couldn’t ask for anything more.

He didn’t remember the day he took the shot. He remembered the days before, though. They had been camped out, waiting for other regiments to join their battalion and to take their orders. There were rumors other New York regiments were coming, and he had tried not to get his hopes up; it had been months since Steve had written. But he’d been walking through camp and heard that laugh, that soft and careful laugh he would know anywhere and he’d started running and there he was, huddled around a campfire with a few other men.

“Stevie.” Bucky had croaked; his throat felt tight and his stomach might as well have been in his boots.

Steve had stood immediately, rushing to him and clasping both his hands in a shake that Bucky felt like he had to pull away from, with everyone watching, his face growing hot. The rest was a blur. Stolen smiles and whispers, lazing in the sun and watching Steve draw, concentrating and curled in on himself. Steve’s careful hands as he cleaned his gun. Steve stealing into his tent and whispering to him, telling him make believe stories when he couldn’t sleep, like when they were kids. And then orders were received and regiments were called and it was back to the numbing horror.

He’d passed out on the battlefield and woken up a lead studded prisoner with a terrible infection. They marched him to Georgia and amputated the arm along the way. Sometimes he swore he could still feel it. Other times he woke up in a cold sweat, a scream in his throat, and could swear the rats were crawling on him again, that he could smell the foul swamp stench and hear the screams. It took a moment, every time, to remember that he’d escaped. That after that, the war had ended. It was part of why he had run so far west, when he was still half feral and could barely string the thoughts together to figure out where to go beyond _far away_. In the seconds when he woke from the nightmares and took shuddering gulps of air, it tasted crisp and clear and didn’t smell like death, he would come back to himself.

Sometimes the ranchers asked about it, the ones who were too young to have been soldiers themselves, or the ones who were too thick headed to know what was good for them. He tried not to let it bother him, told himself they didn't mean any harm. There were a few rebs who had moved out West, either because they couldn’t figure out to hack it in agriculture once they had to account for the cost of labor, or because they’d lost their lands to fires or looters. They were the ones he never gave the benefit of the doubt.

Early on, when he’d still been half starved and wild with the soldier’s heart, one had sidled up to him at the bar, stinking of liquor and the grime of a day driving cattle.

“Aye. Bill. Bill.” Bucky looked straight ahead, ignoring the rancher.

“Bill can’t you see I’m talking to you?” He had prodded at his good shoulder. Bucky bristled, downing the rest of his drink.

“That ain’t my name.”

“Sure it is, dumb yank.”

Bucky hissed a breath out through his teeth but didn’t rise to the bait. 

“What happened to your arm, Bill? One of our boys get you good?”

“Shut up.”

“Pah. What’d you do with it? You bury it? You cry about it?”

“I said, shut up.” He could feel himself coiling like a spring, wanting to lash out, his thoughts racing and memories of violence flashing across his mind’s eye. He tried to push the feelings away.

“Ain’t no shame in it. Hell, if you weren’t a dumb fucking yank you might almost look like Old Stonewall…. Though… there’s something more than just yank about you, you almost look like you’ve got some…”

And then Bucky saw red, all his emotions roiling and surging inside of him and he wasn’t sure how to name all of them but he was angry and he wanted to hurt so he hauled off and punched the man with his good arm, square in the face and he could feel the small bones of his nose crack as his knuckles connected. There had been a gush of blood and the man stumbled back and scrabbled for him and Bucky had followed, kept thrashing out until someone else was pulling him up and the other man was limp and barely breathing.

The next day he was horrified with himself, and went to apologize to Natasha. She just shook her head, and said the man deserved it. He started wearing the prosthetic a lot more after that.

He wasn’t sure how the word travelled, but it did, and he started getting nods on the street, first from some of the railroad men, and then the story seemed to spread further, because then the sojourning laborers, who came down from the mountainsides where they drove their cattle among the ancient pueblo ruins were tipping their hats too.

Bucky didn’t know what to think about it, at first, this new kind of celebrity and strange looks of solidarity. He liked to keep to himself, working his few acres as best he could and going in to town for a day when he needed supplies he couldn’t grow, which, admittedly, was most things and he was stacking up a lot of debt at the general store, or a drink. He didn’t like the feeling he was being watched, that people were _aware_ of him. It made the paranoia worse, so he’d stopped going in to town as much.

\--

Bucky kept his hat low as he pored over the selection of patent medicines, sparkling in their little vials from within the glass cabinet in the general store, not looking up when he heard the door open and close until he felt someone standing over his shoulder.

“Been a while, mister.” It was Natasha, the bar girl who had always been kind to him. He relaxed a little and nodded hello.

“Been busy.”

“What do you think of this?” She was pointing at a necklace in the case, simple with some pearls and cheap beads.

“It’d suit.” He was bemused, but he liked Natasha. She reminded him of Becca—it flashed across his mind quickly, and he pushed it away. Best not to remember his family.

“Does the name Clint Barton mean anything to you?” She was still eyeing the jewelry, but cut an appraising glance at him.

“No, ma’am, can’t say that it does.” Bucky wracked his brain, knowing sometimes the names and places got jumbled, but really couldn’t place it.

“He wants to meet you. Thinks you might be able to help each other.”

“I don’t… I don’t know. Why?”

“I can vouch for him, promise. It’s important.” Bucky couldn’t imagine what could be so important, or what anyone would want his help for.

“I don’t know...” He said again

“Look, Buck.” She was facing him now, her eyes big and earnest. “Just come by tonight, alright? The private room, ‘cause he wants to make a business proposition. He’s a good guy, I swear on it, and it couldn’t hurt for you to have a friend.”

He nodded, not sure what else to say. She seemed adamant about this, and he guessed he did trust her, in a way.

“I’ll see you tonight then, I’ll make up a plate for you and everything. No charge.”

\--

He was as good as his word, and it was blessedly empty when he slipped into the saloon that evening. Nat waved him in, balancing a tray with bowls of meat stew, a bottle of whiskey, and two glasses on her hip as she led him down the hall to one of the few private dining rooms.

“Clint? Here he is, meet Sargent Barnes.”

The room was gloomy, windowless with sputtering oil lamps for illumination. In the partial darkness, a man with a chiseled jaw and a flash of dark hair looked him up and down appraisingly. Bucky could feel his hackles rising, wanting to run, and then—there was a glint of recognition, from posters he had seen around the town.

Natasha set the tray down and went to perch on the arm of the man’s chair; he touched her hand briefly and she smiled, which was interesting information Bucky filed away for later.

“You’re him. Hawkeye. You’re an outlaw.” He looked to Nat for confirmation, and she shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s me, bud. Pleasure to meet you.” Clint was pouring himself a drink, then held the bottle out to Bucky, who took it without a word and poured a drink of his own.

“You tired of trying to farm on this damned rocky land yet?”

Hawkeye— _Clint_ it turned out, had a lot of connections, and a vision. Which was how Bucky found himself working for the railroad in the day time, doing the kind of basic things like checking ties and plotting routes that gave him a lot of time to talk with the other laborers. It had been hard at first, he hadn’t liked it, but Clint was right in his estimation, he’d gotten a bit of a reputation, and the men listened to him and it became easier and easier to talk. They were well on their way to having a union, and could lobby collectively for land rights, wages, and so on. Clint had been living in the valley for longer than anyone, he knew the old ways, and he’d be damned if he saw the railroad carve it up and spit it out. And at night, well, it turned out Clint hated the puffed up old rebs as much as Bucky did, and had been keeping a long list of who was wronging whom.


	3. these streets are a ghost town, 1867

Steve had not meant to become a hero, honest. He liked doing what was right, sure, but not with any goal concerning himself attached to it. The idea of it itched and he felt wrong when people thanked him for his service or his bravery or whatever it was they wanted to call it. It felt cheap, and like an insult to everyone else who’d served when he let people fawn over him. They’d all done what they could. He was just lucky to have made it out. Just luck, that was all. 

This is what he told himself when he’d gotten a letter from the Pinkerton Agency, suggesting he was a distinguished veteran and that he might like to put his skills to use for the good of the country again.

He threw the letter in the brazier and tried to forget.

\--

After the war, he hadn’t known what else to do with himself, so when he was mustered out he went back to New York. He wasn’t the only one, hollow eyed and weary in old wools. He had no family left to speak of, and couldn’t bring himself to impose on kind old Mrs. Barnes, so he’d taken up lodgings a few streets away from his old block. On the train back up, someone had handed him a flyer for the local G.A.R. chapter. He’d thought about going to a meeting once, just about had gotten over the threshold of the old pool hall where it was listed, when a wave of such fierce nostalgia and grief gripped him that he took off running, running to clear his head and to feel the burn in his muscles and lungs and to get _away, away_ and didn’t think about going back again.

Eventually he realized he’d need a job, and that depressed him. He’d worked in a florist’s, before, carting in bushels and bushels of flowers and taking orders for arrangements. He liked it, talking to people, and he had plenty of time to sketch waiting for the flower wagons to arrive in the early mornings. Once, the owner caught him drawing, and instead of being angry, had been so impressed with his work that he was allowed to start making up advertisements, too, that ran in the local lady’s magazine.

Becca Barnes was a subscriber, and when she was finished with the issues, she gave them to Bucky and he painstakingly cut out each of Steve’s illustrations, and tacked them up in a corner of the rooms they rented in the rickety old backtoback house. It made sense, Steve had rationalized to himself, for them to live together. They were both bachelors, and rent was steep and so was coal and it was easier to cook for two anyhow.

He tried not to think about the times he brought Buck home flowers, the way his eyes lit up. The way some nights in the busy season he would stumble home, worn out from working on a big order, with pollen smudges on his cheekbones and his thumbs thorn-pricked; Bucky would use his handkerchief to wipe the pollen gently away, then take Steve’s hands in his and knead out the soreness of the day.

\--

Sometimes he felt like he’d woken up in a different time. Things were disconnected; streets he should have known looked strange. He’d not been away more than five years, and New York had somehow changed. Even now, that he was back, it felt like the world was moving on without him. Like he was always trying to catch up.

It reminded him of his childhood, the way he’d always felt like he was staring out the window at the rest of the world, because often he was, too ill and weak to play in the street or sell papers like the other neighborhood boys. He was used to being forgotten.

Except, of course, he was never completely forgotten, because there was Bucky. Bucky climbing up the fire escape and through his window. Sometimes he brought Steve penny novels or a broadside, and they’d sit with their shoulders pressed together, taking turns to read out loud to each other. Other days, if Steve was feeling up to it, they’d sneak onto one of the ferries or wander in Cypress Hill, making up ghost stories.

When they were older, and he was on break from working in the flower shop and Bucky wasn’t working in the factory, they’d still wander through and eat lunch or share a pipe. It had gotten more stylish, towards the end there, with lots of young couples wandering arm in arm on the pathways paved through the graves. He’d never said it, but he half way thought they’d end up there one day, and liked the idea of it. On account of Buck being half Jewish, and Steve himself being mostly Catholic, he had always appreciated the non-sectarian cemetery. After all, he couldn’t really imagine staring down the great eternity without his best friend there.

Steve still visited Cypress Hill from time to time, out of a sense of duty more than anything else. He’d be in a mood for days afterward, but it felt important and like it mattered so he did it anyway. There were still the young couples, in their own worlds, but he saw more people like him. Eyes turned down, with black armbands or veils. Sometimes it made him feel less alone, sometimes it didn’t.

\--

The Pinkertons sent him another letter, then another. They went in the brazier too.

\--

Steve really, really needed a job. He’d taken a couple, since he’d been back. _It’d been more than a year now_. They hadn’t stuck. He was always getting distracted, and it didn’t seem to matter any way except he needed _food_ and he had _bills_ and so when the Pinkertons wrote a fourth time, he accepted the proposition.

**Author's Note:**

> since i'm apparently incapable of finishing fics I wanted to do something that didn't need a huge overall plot but would still all fit together and be interesting. For further reading on queer & diverse communities in the c19 American West, I recommend Chris Packard's "Queer Cowboys" and Bonnie Clark's "On The Edge of Purgatory" which have been major inspirations for this work.


End file.
